Fundamentals of Programming Chapter Four: Arrays and Strings
Chapter Four
4. Arrays and Strings
What is An Array?
A collection of identical data objects, which are stored in consecutive memory
locations under a common heading or a variable name. In other words, an array is
a group or a table of values referred to by the same name. The individual values in
array are called elements. Array elements are also variables.
Set of values of the same type, which have a single name followed by an index.
In C++, square brackets appear around the index right after the name.
A block of memory representing a collection of many simple data variables
stored in a separate array element, and the computer stores all the elements
of an array consecutively in memory.
Properties of arrays:
Arrays in C++ are zero-bounded; that is the index of the first element in
the array is 0 and the last element is N-1, where N is the size of the array.
It is illegal to refer to an element outside of the array bounds, and your
program will crash or have unexpected results, depending on the compiler.
Array can only hold values of one type.
Array declaration
Declaring the name and type of an array and setting the number of elements in an
array is called dimensioning the array. The array must be declared before one uses
in like other variables. In the array declaration one must define:
1. The type of the array (i.e. integer, floating point, char etc.)
2. Name of the array,
3. The total number of memory locations to be allocated or the maximum value of
each subscript. i.e. the number of elements in the array.
So the general syntax for the declaration is:
DataTypename arrayname [array size];
The expression array size, which is the number of elements, must be a constant
such as 10 or a symbolic constant declared before the array declaration, or a
constant expression such as 10*sizeof (int), for which the values are known at the
time compilation takes place.
Note: array size cannot be a variable whose value is set while the program is running.
Thus to declare an integer with size of 10 having a name of num is:
int num [10];
This means: ten consecutive two byte memory location will be reserved with the
name num.
That means, we can store 10 values of type int without having to declare 10
different variables each one with a different identifier. Instead of that, using an
array we can store 10 different values of the same type, int for example, with a
unique identifier.
Initializing Arrays
When declaring an array of local scope (within a function), if we do not specify
the array variable will not be initialized, so its content is undetermined until we
store some values in it.
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If we declare a global array (outside any function) its content will be initialized
with all its elements filled with zeros. Thus, if in the global scope we declare:
int day [5];
every element of day will be set initially to 0:
But additionally, when we declare an Array, we have the possibility to
assign initial values to each one of its elements using curly brackets { } .
For example:
int day [5] = { 16, 2, 77, 40, 12071 };
The above declaration would have created an array like the following one:
The number of elements in the array that we initialized within curly brackets { }
must be equal or less than the length in elements that we declared for the array
enclosed within square brackets [ ]. If we have less number of items for the
initialization, the rest will be filled with zero.
For example, in the example of the day array we have declared that it had 5
elements and in the list of initial values within curly brackets { } we have set 5
different values, one for each element. If we ignore the last initial value (12071) in
the above initialization, 0 will be taken automatically for the last array element.
Because this can be considered as useless repetition, C++ allows the possibility of
leaving empty the brackets [ ], where the number of items in the initialization
bracket will be counted to set the size of the array.
int day [] = { 1, 2, 7, 4, 12,9 };
The compiler will count the number of initialization items which is 6 and set the size
of the array day to 6 (i.e.: day[6])
You can use the initialization form only when defining the array. You cannot use it
later, and cannot assign one array to another once i.e.
int arr [] = {16, 2, 77, 40, 12071};
int ar [4];
ar[]={1,2,3,4};//not allowed
arr=ar;//not allowed
Note: when initializing an array, we can provide fewer values than the array
elements. E.g. int a [10] = {10, 2, 3}; in this case the compiler sets the
remaining elements to zero.
Accessing and processing array elements
In any point of the program in which the array is visible we can access
individually anyone of its elements for reading or modifying it as if it was a
normal variable. To access individual elements, index or subscript is used.
The format is the following:
name [ index ]
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In c++ the first element has an index of 0 and the last element has an
index, which is one less the size of the array (i.e. arraysize-1). Thus, from
the above declaration, day[0] is the first element and day[4] is the last
element.
Following the previous examples where day had 5 elements and each
element is of type int, the name, which we can use to refer to each
element, is the following one:
For example, to store the value 75 in the third element of the array variable
day a suitable sentence would be:
day[2] = 75; //as the third element is found at index 2
And, for example, to pass the value of the third element of the array
variable day to the variable a , we could write:
a = day[2];
Therefore, for all the effects, the expression day[2] is like any variable of
type int with the same properties. Thus an array declaration enables us to
create a lot of variables of the same type with a single declaration and we
can use an index to identify individual elements.
Notice that the third element of day is specified day[2] , since first is
day[0] , second day[1] , and therefore, third is day[2] . By this same
reason, its last element is day [4]. Since if we wrote day [5], we would be
acceding to the sixth element of day and therefore exceeding the size of
the array. This might give you either error or unexpected value depending
on the compiler.
In C++ it is perfectly valid to exceed the valid range of indices for an Array,
which can cause certain detectable problems, since they do not cause
compilation errors but they can cause unexpected results or serious errors
during execution. The reason why this is allowed will be seen ahead when
we begin to use pointers.
At this point it is important to be able to clearly distinguish between the two
uses the square brackets [ ] have for arrays.
o One is to set the size of arrays during declaration
o The other is to specify indices for a specific array element when
accessing the elements of the array
We must take care of not confusing these two possible uses of brackets [ ]
with arrays:
Eg: int day[5]; // declaration of a new Array (begins with a type name)
day[2] = 75; // access to an element of the Array.
Other valid operations with arrays in accessing and assigning:
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int a=1;
day [0] = a;
day[a] = 5;
b = day [a+2];
day [day[a]] = day [2] + 5;
day [day[a]] = day[2] + 5;
Eg: Arrays example ,display the sum of the numbers in the array
#include <iostream.h> {
int day [ ] = {16, 2, 77, 40,
12071}; for ( n=0 ; n<5 ; n++ )
int n, result=0; { result += day[n];
void main () }
cout << result;
getch(); }
Strings of Characters:
What are Strings?
In all programs and concepts we have seen so far, we have used only
numerical variables, used to express numbers exclusively. But in addition to
numerical variables there also exist strings of characters that allow us to
represent successive characters, like words, sentences, names, texts, etc. Until
now we have only used them as constants, but we have never considered
variables able to contain them.
In C++ there is no specific elementary variable type to store string of
characters. In order to fulfill this feature we can use arrays of type char, which
are successions of char elements. Remember that this data type (char) is the
one used to store a single character, for that reason arrays of them are
generally used to make strings of single characters.
For example, the following array (or string of characters) can store a string up
to 20 characters long. You may imagine it thus:
char name [20];
name
This maximum size of 20 characters is not required to be always fully used. For
example, name could store at some moment in a program either the string of
characters "Hello" or the string "studying C++”. Therefore, since the array of
characters can store shorter strings than its total length, there has been
reached a convention to end the valid content of a string with a null character,
whose constant can be written as '\0’.
We could represent name (an array of 20 elements of type char) storing the
strings of characters "Hello" and "Studying C++" in the following way:
H e l l 0 \0
S t u d y i n g C + + \0
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Notice how after the valid content it is included a null character ( '\0') in order to
indicate the end of string. The empty cells (elements) represent indeterminate
values.
Initialization of Strings
Because strings of characters are ordinary arrays they fulfill same rules as any
array. For example, if we want to initialize a string of characters with
predetermined values we can do it in a similar way to any other array:
char mystring[] = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0' };
In this case we would have declared a string of characters (array) of 6
elements of type char initialized with the characters that compose Hello plus
a null character '\0’.
Nevertheless, string of characters have an additional way to initialize its
values: using constant strings.
In the expressions we have used in examples of previous chapters there have
already appeared several times constants that represented entire strings of
characters. These are specified enclosed between double quotes ( “ “ ), for
example:
Eg: "the result is: "
is a constant string that we have probably used in some occasion.
Unlike single quotes ( ' ) which allow to specify single character constants,
double quotes ( " ) are constants that specify a succession of characters. These
strings enclosed between double quotes have always a null character (‘\0’)
automatically appended at the end.
Therefore we could initialize the string mystring with values by any of these
two ways:
char mystring [] = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0' };
char mystring [] = "Hello";
In both cases the Array or string of characters mystring is declared with a size
of 6 characters (elements of type char ): the 5 characters that compose Hello
plus a final null character ( '\0' ) which specifies the end of the string and that,
in the second case, when using double quotes ( " ) it is automatically
appended.
Before going further, you should note that the assignation of multiple constants
like double-quoted constants ( " ) to arrays are only valid when initializing the
array, that is, at the moment when declared.
The following expressions within a code are not valid for arrays
mystring="Hello";
mystring[] = "Hello";
neither would be: mystring = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0' };
So remember: We can "assign" a multiple constant to an Array only at the
moment of initializing it. The reason will be more comprehensible when you
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know a bit more about pointers, since then it will be clarified that an array is
simply a constant pointer pointing to an allocated block of memory. And
because of this constant feature, the array itself cannot be assigned any value,
but we can assign values to each of the elements of the array.
At the moment of initializing an Array it is a special case, since it is not an
assignation, although the same equal sign (=) is used. Anyway, have always
present the rule previously underlined.
Assigning Values to Strings
Just like any other variables, array of character can store values using
assignment operators. But the following is not allowed.
mystring=”Hello”;
This is allowed only during initialization. Therefore, since the lvalue of an
assignation can only be an element of an array and not the entire array, what
would be valid is to assign a string of characters to an array of char using a
method like this:
mystring[0] = 'H';
mystring[1] = 'e';
mystring[2] = 'l';
mystring[3] = 'l';
mystring[4] = 'o';
mystring[5] = '\0';
But as you may think, this does not seem to be a very practical method.
Generally for assigning values to an array, and more specifically to a string of
characters, a series of functions like strcpy are used. strcpy ( str ing c o py )
is defined in the ( string.h ) library and can be called the following way:
strcpy ( string1 , string2 );
This does copy the content of string2 into string1 . string2 can be either an
array, a pointer, or a constant string , so the following line would be a valid way
to assign the constant string "Hello" to mystring :
strcpy (mystring, "Hello");
For example:
#include <iostream.h>
#include <string.h>
int main ()
{
char szMyName [20];
strcpy (szMyName,"Abebe");
cout << szMyName;
return 0;
}
Look how we have needed to include <string.h> header in order to be able to use
function strcpy.
Although we can always write a simple function like the following setstring with the
same operating than cstring's strcpy :
// setting value to string
#include <iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>
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void namecopy(char dest[], char source[])
{
int c = 0;
while(source[c] != ‘\0’)
{
dest[c] = source[c];
c++;
}
dest[c] = ‘\0’;
cout<< “\n your name after copying : ”<<dest;
}
void main()
{ clrscr();
char name[10],dest[10];
cout<< “\n enter your name : ”;
cin>>name;
namecopy(dest,name);
getch();
}
Another frequently used method to assign values to an array is by using
directly the input stream (cin). In this case the value of the string is assigned
by the user during program execution.
When cin is used with strings of characters it is usually used with its getline
method, that can be called following this prototype:
cin.getline ( char buffer [], int length , char delimiter = ' \n');
where buffer is the address where to store the input (like an array, for
example), length is the maximum length of the buffer (the size of the array)
and delimiter is the character used to determine the end of the user input,
which by default - if we do not include that parameter - will be the newline
character ( '\n' ).
The following example repeats whatever you type on your keyboard. It is quite
simple but serves as example on how you can use cin.getline with strings:
// cin with strings
#include <iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main ()
{ char mybuffer [100];
cout << "What's your name? ";
cin.getline (mybuffer,100);
cout << "Hello " << mybuffer << ".\n";
cout << "Which is your favourite team? ";
cin.getline (mybuffer,100);
cout << "I like " << mybuffer << " too.\n";
getch();
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return 0;
}
Notice how in both calls to cin.getline we used the same string identifier
(mybuffer). What the program does in the second call is simply step on the
previous content of buffer by the new one that is introduced.
If you remember the section about communication through console, you will
remember that we used the extraction operator ( >> ) to receive data directly
from the standard input. This method can also be used instead of cin.getline
with strings of characters. For example, in our program, when we requested an
input from the user we could have written:
cin >> mybuffer;
this would work, but this method has the following limitations that cin.getline
has not:
It can only receive single words (no complete sentences) since this method uses as
delimiter any occurrence of a blank character, including spaces, tabulators,
newlines and carriage returns.
It is not allowed to specify a size for the buffer. What makes your program unstable
in case that the user input is longer than the array that will host it.
For these reasons it is recommendable that whenever you require strings of
characters coming from cin you use cin.getline instead of cin >> .
Converting strings to other types
Due to that a string may contain representations of other data types like
numbers it might be useful to translate that content to a variable of a numeric
type. For example, a string may contain "1977”, but this is a sequence of 5
chars not so easily convertible to a single integer data type. The cstdlib (
stdlib.h ) library provides three useful functions for this purpose:
atoi: converts string to int type.
atol: converts string to long type.
atof: converts string to float type.
All of these functions admit one parameter and return a value of the requested
type (int, long or float). These functions combined with getline method of cin
are a more reliable way to get the user input when requesting a number than
the classic cin>> method:
// cin and ato* functions
#include <iostream.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main()
{ clrscr();
char mybuffer[100];
float price;
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int quantity;
cout << "Enter price: ";
cin.getline (mybuffer,100);
price = atof (mybuffer);
cout << "Enter quantity: ";
cin.getline (mybuffer,100);
quantity = atoi (mybuffer);
cout<<"\nafter conversion :\n";
cout<<"\nprice is : "<<price;
cout<<"\nquantity is : "<<quantity;
cout << "\nTotal price: " << price*quantity;
getch();
return 0;
}
Functions to manipulate strings
The cstring library ( string.h ) defines many functions to perform some manipulation
operations with C-like strings (like already explained strcpy). Here you have a brief
with the most usual:
a) String length
Returns the length of a string, not including the null character (\0).
strlen (const char* string );
b) String Concatenation:
Appends src string at the end of dest string. Returns dest.
The string concatenation can have two forms, where the first one is to
append the whole content of the source to the destination the other will
append only part of the source to the destination.
o Appending the whole content of the source
strcat (char* dest , const char* src );
o Appending part of the source
strncat (char* dest , const char* src, int size );
Where size is the number characters to be appended
c) String Copy:
Overwrites the content of the dest string by the src string. Returns dest.
The string copy can have two forms, where the first one is to copying the
whole content of the source to the destination and the other will copy
only part of the source to the destination.
o Copy the whole content of the source
strcpy (char* dest , const char* src );
o Appending part of the source
strncpy (char* dest , const char* src, int size );
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Where size is the number characters to be copied
d) String Compare:
Compares the two string string1 and string2.
The string compare can have two forms, where the first one is to
compare the whole content of the two strings and the other will compare
only part of the two strings.
o Compare the whole content of string1 and string2
strcmp (const char* string1 , const char* string2 );
o Compare part of string1 and string2
strncmp (const char* string1 , const char* string2, int size );
Where size is the number of characters to be compared
Both string compare functions returns three different values:
o Returns 0 is the strings are equal
o Returns negative value if the first is less than the second string
o Returns positive value if the first is greater than the second string
Multidimensional Arrays
Multidimensional arrays can be described as arrays of arrays. For example, a bi-
dimensional array can be imagined as a bi-dimensional table of a uniform
concrete data type.
Matrix represents a bi-dimensional array of 3 per 5 values of type int . The way
to declare this array would be:
int matrix[3][5];
For example, the way to reference the second element vertically and fourth
horizontally in an expression would be:
matrix[1][3]
(remember that array indices always begin by 0 )
Multidimensional arrays are not limited to two indices (two dimensions). They
can contain so many indices as needed, although it is rare to have to represent
more than 3 dimensions. Just consider the amount of memory that an array
with many indices may need. For example:
char century [100][365][24][60][60];
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Assigns a char for each second contained in a century, that is more than 3
billion chars! What would consume about 3000 megabytes of RAM memory if
we could declare it?
Multidimensional arrays are nothing else than an abstraction, since we can
simply obtain the same results with a simple array by putting a factor between
its indices:
int matrix [3][5]; is equivalent to
int matrix [15]; (3 * 5 = 15)
With the only difference that the compiler remembers for us the depth of each
imaginary dimension. Serve as example these two pieces of code, with exactly
the same result, one using bi-dimensional arrays and the other using only
simple arrays:
// multidimensional array
#include <iostream.h>
#define WIDTH 5
#define HEIGHT 3
int matrix [HEIGHT][WIDTH];
int n,m;
int main ()
{ for (n=0;n<HEIGHT;n++)
for (m=0;m<WIDTH;m++)
{
matrix [n][m]=(n+1)*(m+1);
}
return 0;
}
None of the programs above produce any output on the screen, but both
assign values to the memory block called matrix in the following way:
We have used defined constants ( #define ) to simplify possible future
modifications of the program, for example, in case that we decided to enlarge
the array to a height of 4 instead of 3 it would be enough by changing the line:
#define HEIGHT 3
by the following code
#define HEIGHT 4
Worksheet No 4:
1. Define strlen function (i.e write the function body of strlen)
2. Define the strcmp function and the strncmp function
3. Define strcpy function and the strncpy function
4. Define strcat function and the strncat function
5. Write a program to store the ages of six of your friends in a single array. Store each of the six ages
using the assignment operator. print the ages on the screen
6. Write a C++ program that accepts 10 integers from the user and finally displays the smallest value
and the largest value.
7. Write a program that accepts ten different integers from the user and display these numbers after
sorting them in increasing order.
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8. Write a program to store six of your friend’s ages in a single array. Assign the ages in a random
order. print the ages, from low to high, on-screen
9. Modify the program on Q8 to print the ages in descending order.
10.Write a C++ program that calculates the letter grades of 20 students. The program should accept
the mid result and the final result from the students. Use the appropriate validity control
mechanism to prevent wrong inputs.
11.Write a C++ program that has two functions toBinary and toDecimal. The program should display a
menu prompting the user to enter his choice. If the user selects toBinary, then the function should
accept a number in base ten and displays the equivalent binary representation. The reverse should
be done if the user selects toDecimal.
12.Develop a C++ program that accepts a word from the user and then checks whether the word is
palindrome or not. (NB a word is palindrome if it is readable from left to right as well as right to
left).
13.Write a C++ program that accepts a word from the user and then displays the word after reversing
it.
14.Develop a C++ program that accepts the name of a person and then counts how many vowels the
person’s name have.
15.Modify the question in Q14 in such a way that it should replace vowel characters with * in the
person name.
16.Write a program in C++ which read a three digit number and generate all the possible permutation
of numbers using the above digits. For example n = 123 then the permutations are – 123, 213,
312, 132, 231, 321
17.Write a program which read a set of lines until you enter #.
18.Write a program which read two matrixes and then print a matrix which is addition of these two
matrixes.
19.Write a program which reads two matrix and multiply them if possible
20.Write a program which reads a 3 x 2 matrix and then calculates the sum of each row and store that
in a one dimension array.
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